Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Community on Sunday 11th March

Tech startups have long known that a strong community will amplify a company’s successes, bolster growth, and make work worth waking up for. Today's unstoppable startups understand that putting community first means putting community management first. And yet, the field of online community management is still in its early days, and we haven’t stopped figuring it out as we go along. Through case studies and never-before-told stories of three veteran community managers from SoundCloud, Foursquare, and Airbnb, we’ll reveal what it takes to build a community to last.

Imagine turning one of your city's most beleaguered and notorious neighborhoods into the home of some of the country's most innovative media projects. This panel examines how the Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol achieved just that. The KWMC's University of Local Knowledge project has inspired astounding community growth and regeneration through collaborative media. The KWMC created 800 videos about local crafts and skills; then they brought professionals together with local experts to learn from one another about everything from cars to photography to horse whispering. The project was organized through a green, world-class media centre established in one of the more troubled parts of Bristol. The panel examines how the project directors used digital media and digital art to make the ULK project a success in engaging and teaching digital literacy, as well assisting in community regeneration.
This process involved a creative use of public space, media centre space, wikis, blogging, videography, computer classes, and sound mixing studios to combine the physical and digital into one cohesive learning environment. KWMC Director Carolyn Hassan will explain the process and answer question about the use of collaborative media for successful community regeneration.

Seemingly easy questions can become complex when you consider ambiguity. This one sounds simple until you consider that folks may define “coffee shop” differently and the boundaries of your “neighborhood” differently. One person’s Central Austin, may be someone else’s South Dallas.

How about instead of working too hard to define the parameters in an attempt to completely remove the ambiguity, we instead look at what people do, interact with and talk about. We can watch what people do and decide from there what a coffee shop is and where the boundaries of your neighborhood are. It might not be the “truth”, but it can be darn close.

When we learn to embrace ambiguity, not only can we still find the answers to our questions, but we can also find answers to questions we hadn’t even thought to ask.

Why do some tech communities thrive while other fail? What can you do to start, fix or grow your city's startup scene?

This panel will take a grounded look at the key ingredients of successful startup communities in any geography. We'll look the role that events, spaces, accelerators, VC, angels, universities, and government play in the equation, and we'll dissect the intangibles as well - including culture, philosophy, mentorship, education, and more. We'll also have some time at the end for audience questions. Panelists include Brad Feld, Paige Craig, Mark Davis, Nick Seguin, Marc Nager and Andrew Yang.

First time at Interactive? We have a meet- up for that! Newbies are welcome to come mingle and meet in a casual, friendly, not-as-noisy-as-most-parties-environment. Ask questions, relax with other newbies, learn a survival tip (or two)- all hosted by a long time veteran of the conference.